In a solid oxide fuel cell (sometimes abbreviated below as SOFC), a unit consisting of a fuel electrode, a solid electrolyte and an air electrode is called a single cell, and a plurality of these units is stacked to achieve a serial connection and construct a power generating system. Tens to hundreds of single cells must be stacked to obtain adequate power output, and the single cells must be mechanically strong enough to provide stable, long-term power generation in such a highly stacked state. For this reason, it is common to use electrolyte-supported cells comprising a solid electrolyte hundreds of microns thick with a fuel electrode and air electrode tens of microns thick printed on either side of the solid electrolyte.
In order to improve a power generating characteristics of a single cell and consequently the power generating characteristics of a stack, it is necessary to minimize an internal resistance of the single cell. Because the electrolyte has the highest resistance of the components of the single cell, research has been conducted for reducing the thickness of the solid electrolyte (e.g. Patent Document 1).
There has therefore been research into electrode-supported cells, in which the solid electrolyte is made thinner while the thickness of the air electrode and fuel electrode, which have relatively less internal resistance than the solid electrolyte, is increased from hundreds of microns to a few millimeters (e.g. Patent Document 2).    Patent Document 1 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-346842    Patent Document 2 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-85522